


Compassion for the Dead

by m_k_ch



Category: 91 Days (Anime)
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Finale spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-01
Updated: 2016-10-01
Packaged: 2018-08-18 21:45:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,106
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8177128
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/m_k_ch/pseuds/m_k_ch
Summary: It seemed as if all his efforts were in vain.





	

**Author's Note:**

> this basically contains meta of what i think what happened in the finale and what avilio thinks of during the finale in angst fic form. i also cannot believe nero killed avilio and replaced him with a can of pineapples-

He sees Corteo’s deformed shadow by the alleyway. He’s ready to go. He reaches out, hoping that he would touch him, and he blacks out.

He wakes up, uncomfortably feeling the soft sheets underneath him. For a few seconds he feels that high annoyance, because he's able to breathe again. He should have died back there. He was feeling the peace wash over him when he (hopelessly) saw Corteo then. Why is he alive now?

Then it subsides, and once again he feels nothing.

A flurry of words buzz in his ears. He doesn’t think he actually remembers the name of this person.

_“If you kill a certain someone there, you can be free._

_Will you come with me?”_

What even _is_ the point anymore?

* * *

Nero arrives at the room.

The sound of skin hitting skin play in his ears while he watches the world burn in front of him. Far, but he can decipher that yes, he has done this. He destroyed their lives. Avilio has done that, all for the sake of avenging his family.

In those moments when Nero stood next to him, he thought about the other families who had the same fate as his. Families that died and had other ones left. Left to live the again in misery. What would happen to them, he thought aimlessly. It all fades away too quickly when he is brought to the car.

What a selfish world he lives in.

* * *

It hurts when you know too much.

That was Angelo, who suffered seven years of living. Who woke up to wet pillows and walked the streets with nothing. In those seven years, he learned to live the way of a dead man.

Little Angelo was so scared back then. The sweet taste of inexperience was what he had left to know that he was still alive. Lonely and hungry and begging for food, until he turned into carbon black. Hiding in the shadows to get what he needs, just to be able to live.

There was no point being scared. If he had to live, he had to live. He questioned himself too many times, wondering if this was what he really wanted. If this was what he needed to do.

Sometimes he still wonders what could have happened if he stayed. He left Corteo to live on his own. Had he felt the feeling of regret that time, when he laid on the dirty ground, trying to find even fallen crumbs of bread? Avilio doesn’t remember anymore.

Morality is nothing to him as months, _years_ passed. He was as good as dead, anyway, so what could that mean to him now? Not in this world where you kill or be killed. No one could hold him back. He had nothing. He was nothing.

(He still is.)

Nero presses the gun to his head, and _almost_ he breathes a sigh of relief. He stares at him, letting him know that Avilio is already dead. He died a long time ago. Nero should just dispose of the body, then.

_“Do it.”_

The supposedly dead Avilio provokes him with the truth. Maybe he could do that to see death as soon as possible. Closure is one thing to make one feel satisfied, even if the truth hurts too much to bear.

Nero raises the gun and he feels explosive pain at the side of his head. He does not budge, but his face scrunches up at the feeling as he leans sideways from the discomfort.

Avilio curses to himself, wondering if there’s still something he could do to die.

* * *

The rays of sunlight feels too eerie; feels too happy. Avilio thinks he doesn’t deserve that life. Or has he felt despair for so long that happiness turned foreign for him?

Happiness does not exist for Avilio.

“Awfully trusting, isn’t he?”

Ironic.

They leave with Cerotto’s car. He may have no car anymore, but might as well spare at least just one person. Avilio is tired. Avilio doesn’t care anymore. His revenge is done after three months and that’s it.

The sound of gunshot still ring in his ears, and for one whole second he misses hearing such, before falling back to sleep again.

* * *

They go back to becoming harmless road trip partners, except Avilio’s hands are numb from the ropes.

There is nothing to hide anymore. They can’t hide the fact that they're broken, but Nero still drives as if he wants to go back to the way things were. When he still trusted Avilio and the story book flipped the pages flawlessly.

It all happened in three months, and Avilio feels that bittersweet remembrance of the past.

Nostalgia is a cruel thing.

His hands twitch and Avilio wants to believe it's from the binds.

* * *

Avilio is hungry, but if given the chance to choose between food and a pack of cigarettes, he will very well choose cigarettes.

He doesn’t feel his mouth water with food anymore, but the sickening rush of nicotine is what makes him feel that he’s still alive. Still painfully living through the depths of hell on earth.

What a terrible life laid out for Avilio Bruno.

* * *

The dull light of the lighter did very little for Nero’s attempts to find where they can go. Where _can_ they go, knowing there’s nothing left for them, anyway?

(Avilio wonders how many times he has thought of that ideal. He does know he has kept thinking about it everyday, though.)

He gives him directions. Blunt, but he knows he's going to follow him.

“The ocean.”

_One last time._

Nero listens to him.

* * *

“It was all for nothing.”

Yes. The truth behind it all.

Maybe he would be full once again, once he served justice for his family. He thought that maybe he could live for his dead family, that avenging them would return the feeling in his heart again.

It all came crashing down when he felt his hand recoil close to Corteo’s heart.

They had all gone. He had nothing left.

The burden of Corteo’s death hung over him. This was not part of the plan.

He has centered his whole life to avenge what was dead without considering the one who still lived.

And now they meet the grave, too.

Avilio wonders that what if he ran away with Corteo instead, abandoning his revenge and start his life anew. He might not know how to live once more, but Corteo could have taught him how.

His efforts were fruitless.

Once again, he feels the burning pain on the side of his head. Avilio wants him to punch him more. Deep inside he wants to die so badly already, _please, just kill me now. Kill me._

“What about them?! What were their deaths for?!”

Avilio feels the pity connect him and Nero together.

“Why didn’t you kill me?”

Nero is so pathetic.

“I trusted you!”

“Then you should have just killed me back then!”

He breaks. He breaks because of anger. Because of the fact that Nero is blindly hypocritical of his own thoughts. Because Avilio’s urge to kill himself is so graciously high that he hopes so badly to the God he doesn’t believe in would kill him already.

“If you’d just shot me…”

The tears run down his face, like a dam that breaks through after all the times he held it in so successfully. He didn’t let go when he shot Corteo, but this is his punishment. After all of the sins he had done, God has forsaken him and let him see all the results of his addiction to avenge. The consequence of ambition.

He took away everything Nero had left without even noticing that he himself took what he had, too. After the gunshot to his brother’s heart, the days that passed felt like a worthless gamble, living once again but in the hellhole he put himself through. The hellhole whose fires don’t burn him anymore, but the lack of pain was what made it scary. That he didn’t mind if he died right then and there.

(So why can’t he kill himself already?)

Nero stares at him, both of them remembering seven years ago.

If Angelo were dead, Corteo may have felt the pain but he would still have the will to live. He had dreams.

(If only, _if only_ Corteo took the money and went to college.

That was what would make Angelo truly happy.)

The only thing holding him up is Nero’s hands tightly holding on to his collar. He still cries shamelessly, letting go of the years of pent up pain. He clings again to that last hope that Nero will understand him, just like the way he understood that Nero wasn’t all at fault with the death of his loved ones.

His breaths heave again and again, like a silent plea to finally let go of the guillotine.

* * *

 Avilio died, but Angelo is still hungry.

Like an intermission, their eerily happy trip has them being back to trusted acquaintances. (Probably). The jokes that came back awfully covered up the atmosphere of what truly happened.

Angelo thinks, this is the perfect way to give a standing ovation.

He remembers the last time he tasted something sweet. The taste of four spoonfuls of sugar has disappeared a long time ago, but maybe this last road trip could be as sweet, or even sweeter than his coffee.

(The taste of coffee with Corteo beside him won’t ever be replaced in a locked place in his heart, but he could have room for this one last time with Nero, too.)

* * *

 

The wind breeze sweeps them both gently. The quietness of it feels so amazingly tranquil that Angelo has soothed everything back again. His face fades away of its dead features and calmness smooths over it.

 _This is it_ , he thinks. He accepts it.

Avilio is dead, so it’s Angelo’s turn.

They walk to the beach and the waves reminisce him the memories of wishes and what ifs and the temporary happiness that lasted to replace little of his angered being. This is his last will. His plan has been done so perfectly well. Yes, the curtains will finally close.

“You don’t need a reason to live.”

Nero is foolish, until the very end.

“You just live.”

Angelo supposes he doesn’t mind.

With the same logic of words, he replies quietly.

“The reason I didn’t kill you, is because I didn’t want to kill you.”

Nero was doomed from the very beginning.

(Without him, Nero wouldn’t be able to live.)

Avilio has centered his life about his plan from the time he got that letter, and Angelo will finish that for him.

The letter that started the fate for everybody.

(Angelo notices how very well he can manipulate his own destiny, but not for others. He couldn’t save Corteo, and he also can’t save Nero, too.)

He feels Nero stop, but Angelo continues.

He knows the pain Nero will feel once he tries continues on, to try and live a new life. Angelo has passed that fate to him, like a new generation of suffering is waiting to happen. Angelo unfortunately thinks that he won’t be able to see the hell he's about to give to him.

He knows Nero will pull a gun, to give him that final serenity, that he _finally_ understands him. The unspoken trust that formed after three months of betrayal seeped through the time that should hurt the most.

Angelo will never live the same way as Nero thinks, so he will be finally put out of his misery after three months of slowly losing everything of what’s left. Like a vase too broken to even break into smaller pieces. That is Angelo, too far in to even find what it's like to live.

Angelo hears a gunshot one last time and pain bursts through his core. He falls and the sand flies everywhere, but he figures that this is okay. The water goes into his eyes and ears and nose, but he doesn’t mind the searing pain of the salt added to the gaping wound, because as everything fades and he feels his body lift so barely, he hears his family once again. He hears Luce and mother and father. He sees Corteo and he’s being welcomed in to his arms.

Everything disappears but in those very final moments of getting to grab death’s hand, he hopes, even just slightly, the last of his plan will play out the way he wanted to.

In the back of his mind, he still clings to the hope that he will soon see Nero, too.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> once again, i dont know if i did justice since i did this at the spur of the moment and its like. 15 minutes till midnight. hmu at twitter @atohiyo because im dying about this  
> i also sometimes discuss about it if i get feelings (and im still having the feelings) and i just love discussing.


End file.
